NEWS RELEASE
NEW PATH YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES
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SIMCOE COUNTY – New Path Youth & Family Services is pleased to announce the launch of a new program to help parents of children, four months to six years of age, support healthy relationships with their children. The Circle of Security Parenting™ program is based on decades of research about how secure parent-child relationships can be supported and strengthened. This free, 8-week group for parents helps them learn strategies to strengthen the attachment critical to a child’s current and future wellbeing.
"Positive relationships are central to positive mental health and well-being. Circle of Security focuses on the importance of connecting with our children to build relationships and knowing that it is never too late to do so,” says Holly Kehoe, Early Years Counsellor at New Path Youth and Family Services. “This builds a secure attachment that helps in all areas of a child’s life. For example, it may lead to more confidence, better outcomes in school, and the ability to have more positive and lasting relationships with others beyond caregivers.”
The program is a partnership between New Path, EarlyON Child and Family Centres across Simcoe, and Simcoe Muskoka Family Connexions with a goal of helping as many families in our region as possible. For now, the program will be run virtually. To find out if this program is a good fit for your family, parents and caregivers are encouraged make an appointment through the Quick Access Child and Youth Mental Health Clinic: www.newpath.ca/quick-access-child-and-youth-mental-health-clinic or if you do not have internet access, call New Path Youth & Family Services at 705-725-7656.
“Circle of Security is an incredible program helping caregivers understand and look at their children in a different way; as young people with thoughts and feelings and needing to connect with their caregiver. As a facilitator of the program, it was such an astounding experience to see caregivers go from “I don’t know what’s wrong with my child” to seeing their child’s distress and how their own trauma and experiences inhibited their ability to attend to that distress, which impacted the parent-child relationship,” says Val. St Pierre, Family Support Worker, Team Lead. “Circle of Security provides caregivers with tools and strategies to help recognize those moments of distress and opportunities to correct their own behaviour to enhance and repair the relationship with their child. What an honour to see the transformation of relationships and moments of connection between the child and their caregiver.”
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